Price of a Dream
by Valensia
Summary: This is a story of Rinoa undertaking the same journey to past, as Squall has completed during the course of FF8. She returns to Deling City to forgive her father for commiting sins she cannot remember him commiting, but once there, the sins of the past ar
1. Prologue

  
  


A/N: Readers of my previous work, in particular the fanfic called Changing Faces, will find some familiar elements in this story. In order to prevent confusion, outrage or critisism, I'll explain why. Changing Faces was my first fanfiction, where Squall was being possesed by an entity that could have been Ultimecia. As I was writing chapter three, an another idea started to grow in my mind, that of a plot totally disconnected to the main one. As it always is with the novice and the inept, I tried putting what I thought a brilliant idea into another story, which could have been sufficient without it. The result was some mess of literary garbage where two different plotlines are tangled into a story that I, as the author, could no longer understand. As time progressed and my writing improved, I realized that the plot-line in which Rinoa starts her own journey to the past (for those who are familiar with CF, this comes in the form of Jules Artica/Heartilly), could be very interesting. So I singled out that plotline and did some massive and exhaustive editing and Price of a Dream was the result. What you have read in Changing Faces is no longer important, Price of a dream is something entirely different. I will delete that story once I have the time and the ability to get over the egoistic fear of deleting all the lovely reviews I got. If my writing appealed to you in the previous story, then you won't have trouble enjoying this story. For I realized that Price of a dream was the story I intented to write, before Changing Faces came flowing out of the electronic depths of my key-board.   


**The Price For A Dream**   
  


  
  
  


Prologue

President Jules Artica smiled at the thousands of people cheering under the balcony of his new presidential home. Beside him stood dozens of nameless faces in suits, shaking his hand as they pretended to share his moment of glory, while all the time they were wary of him. Jules knew they didn't approve of him as their president, maybe because he was too young, too rich, too handsome and too damn convincing. 

To his fellow politicians, he pretended like he was as money-absorbed and conceited as they were. To his people, Jules pretended to be a flamboyant but caring leader, just like they expected of him. 

But beneath that charming exterior, he was a man with his own agenda. It didn't suprise him anymore how easy it was to gain access to human will by a promise or two. It had been lesson he'd never forget. Promise any human anything in this world, and you will posses his soul. Find out their fondest wish and give them a dream and they're yours. 

Everyone has a price. The key was to find the right one and they were bought. 

The elections had been a laugh. In Galbadia there was no such thing as an election. Money, power and manipulation were the keys to success. 

As he overlooked his empire, Jules felt nothing for the people cheering his name. He had nothing to offer them, not even a false promise of changing their lives. _Yes, I'm your president, but I'm not here for you_, he thought as they exclaimed their admiration for him over and over again. 

He was here for one woman only. 

* * * * 


	2. Journey of her own

  
  
  


**The Price For A Dream**   
  


  
  
  


Chapter 1 - Journey of her own

Rinoa strolled by the lovely fountains, humming a song supported by the dripping music of the flowing water. Occasionally a SeeD or cadet would pass her by, nervously glancing her way. But Rinoa ignored them, being too absorbed in her thoughts. It was as though she was trying to catch up with a year worth of silent reflection. 

Sometimes, late at night she would wake with a start, with her arms held up as to fend off an imaginary attack. She would hear Ultimecia's voice, horrendeously modified in her dreams. It was strange to sleep, knowing that the world would still be there when she woke up. 

Yet every morning that followed, a nagging doubt grew stronger in her mind, overwhelming the confidence she used to have in Garden. It was in desperate circumstances that she grew fond of Garden at first.. The feeling that hundreds of people stood behind her, fighting for the same cause, how could she not love this place. The sense of unity born out of necessity was easily mistaken for true belonging. Now the entire ordeal has been over, there was no excuse for her presence here. 

But Squall then, the commander of a world that did not appreciate her kind. It was only him that kept her here. Garden was where he belonged. The entire episode with Ultimecia was merely a course to accept his past, in the end, it led him back to Garden. 

How long would she go on pretending that Squall's journey was hers? How long could she live a life that really belonged to another. 

Suddenly something solid pushed against her. Rinoa almost tripped as the result of the impact. When she recovered she noticed a little boy, a cadet. 

"Excuse me sorceress Rinoa," the boy said nervously, edging away from her as though she could attack him any minute. Without waiting for her to answer, he walked off trying his best not sprint. 

She knew then that the world she woke up to each morning, wasn't the world she belonged to. 

It was time to start a journey of her own. 

* * * * * 

Hard needles of rain splattered against the window of his office in Garden. The storm outside had been distracting him from his work for a while. The only light in the room came from his desk-light, which casted a golden glow on his weary features. Every now and then, the sound of the storm seduced his eyes from his dark office and gave him a glimpse of the raging world outside. 

Commander Squall Leonheart, as most called him, ran his hand wearily through his hair as he read a request for mercenaries from a little farm in Northern Galbadia. Some competitive farms had some sort of war going on and one of them requested aid in attacking another farm. 

Without giving it a second thought Squall binned the foolish request and continued with the next one. Though his eyes and hands were performing their daily functions, his mind drifted off to that exhausting battle of four weeks ago, everytime he glanced out of the window. Somehow the storm outside reminded him of Ultimecia. He didn't exactly understand why. Had it been raining that day? He couldn't remember for the life of him. 

A sudden knock on his office door disrupted his thoughts. 

"Come in," he said without the usual inpatience in his voice, whenever he was interuppted while working. Maybe he was looking for some distraction from the tiresome paperwork he had been buried in all week. 

The door opened to reveal a dark-haired girl standing on the doorstep. Squall noticed that Rinoa didn't just bluntly burst into his office as she used to do. In fact, she was standing there indecsively between the hallway and his office, as though she was about to step into a Blue dragon's lair, instead of her friend's office. 

But she collected enough courage for whatever she was afraid of and closed the door behind her. Without saying a word Rinoa sat down in the chair on the other side of his desk table. 

Funny, sitting like this, she had the feeling that she should have made an appointment with his assistant first. 

Squall placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward. "What's wrong Rinoa?" 

"I can't stay here in Garden anymore Squall," she said suddenly. 

His brows knitted in a frown at this sudden descision of hers. "Why is that?" 

Rinoa hesitated for a while. She wanted to say so many things, but she realized with a pang that she didn't want to tell him. 

"I am a sorceress and Garden fights them," she said more tritely than she intended, "this is a situation which cannot work." 

"Garden's only enemy is dead," he said, as his eyes studied her face calmly. 

"Is that really true? What if another sorceress arises, what then? True, I'm not seeking world domination any time soon, but what if another one does in the future. Sure we've prevented Ultimecia from destroying our world, but we didn't prevent her from being born. How sure are you that not every sorceress is seen as an enemy." 

Squall had the feeling that she'd been practising this speech. 

"I'm not and I can't change anything about that either. But I promise you, that no one will ever hurt you," he said quietly. 

"It's not about me Squall. I think I'm beginning to see how tragic Garden is in fact and I don't think I could stay here in peace while condemning everything around me." 

"You have been thinking about this for a while, isn't it?" 

Rinoa nodded. 

"Where will you go then?" 

She paused then for a second. "I'm going to Deling City this afternoon, to visit my father." 

Oh yeah, he had forgotten that she had a home, one which was worlds apart from his. 

"I thought you hated him?" Squall asked her with a hint of suprise in his voice. 

"Maybe I just needed a world crisis to make me see everything in perspective," she said with a little of her old humour. "Sometimes Squall, things have been going on for so long, that you forget how it all started." 

_Maybe it's time to forgive him for sins I can't remember him commiting. _

"Are you sure you want to go to Deling City, they've recently chosen a new president. The Galbadians may not be so forgiving towards former terrorists." 

She lapsed back into the form of the girl she was, before that girl turned into a sorceress and stuck her tongue out to him. "I was never a terrorist," she said with haughtiness of someone who was used to being called a princess. "I was a freedom fighter." 

Squall nodded. "Anyhow, they may not have forgotten all the damage you've caused on their side." 

Rinoa waved his comments away. "My father is still general remember, they wouldn't think of comprimising their leading man's daughter. Besides, I'm a sorceress, I think I'll manage." 

He didn't respond. 

Her girilish bravado suddenly disappeared, when her face grew serious and she reached for the rings around her necklace, a gesture which he came to recognize as one of nervousity or fear. Which one was it? 

"Squall, maybe you could . . . . . " 

"Could what?" 

" . . . erm, maybe you could come and visit me from time to time." 

"Visit you?" he asked, " Sure, I will. I'll bring you there with the Ragornak, if that's what you want, we'll be there in a half an hour." 

"I think it's better if I go by myself. I could use some time to think before I meet my father, besides I was thinking of taking the train." 

"Will you be fine Rinoa?" Squall asked her in tone that suggested that he wasn't sure if she would. 

She smiled as she nodded "I'm fine Squall." 

_But will you be?_

After an awkward silence, in which they both wanted to say everything about nothing, Rinoa stood up and walked towards the door. One last thought came to her, as she stepped out of the room. 

_You have asked the wrong questions Squall_

* * * * * 

Caraway paced the office that used to be the pride and curse of his life. Only recently, with the appointment of the new president, had the pridded ebbed away and left the dry sand which became the wasteland of haunting memories. It was the love he held for his office as a general which eventually robbed him of the love he had at home. It was the grand picture which made him overlook the more important details. 

With her death, that picture was incomplete. And with the return of Jules, it would be torn apart into a million insignificant pieces that would never find their way together. 

Caraway knew that he was being watched. He knew that the way brushed his hand through his hair in a gesture of weariness and despair didn't go unnoticed, he knew that the fact he had drunk enough caffeine in the space of a day to make an elephant do the twist, had been noted by invisible eyes. Caraway knew that his disaffection brought pleasure to the same restless eyes that covered every corner of his office. 

It had never occured to Caraway that Jules might return. Though, back then the chief motivation in getting that sniper from Galbadia Garden to get his daughter out of Desert Prison was fear. Fear that she might meet him there. At first he told himself it was pride, his daughter didn't belong among the ranks of outlaws and criminals, conveniently overlooking her terrorist allegiances. But he knew it was fear of Jules, because the last time she had seen him, her mother had to die. 

Even then, he never really thought that Jules would suddenly find a way, an unnoticed crack in their lives through which he would slither back in. _Who am I kidding_, he thought to himself, ever since Julia died, there had been so many cracks and tears in their lives that it was a miracle that it hadn't collapsed. Though Caraway hadn't dared to materialize his fears and anger into thoughts, he had somehow known. How could he not have? 

After Rinoa had gotten out, the entire conflict with the sorceress and her role in the matter had consumed his vigilance over a threat that was a lot closer home and possibly more dangerous. 

Only a month and a half or so ago, when that witch Adel gotten hold over Rinoa, someone told him that most the prisoners had escaped during the commotion the SeeDs had created. Even then, his alarm was weakened by worry over Rinoa's current situation. Hell, his daughter was off to fight a sorceress from the future, that alone was enough to drive a man crazy, without the fear of the past. 

When she had returned from the fight unharmed, the fear of Jules which he had conviently pushed to back of his mind, surfaced with a throbbing alarm. At roughly the same time, a report landed on his desk, with an unfortunate delay. The report concerned the evaluation of the Desert Prison incident. Uninterested in the damage analysis, he quickly skipped to the list of fugitves. 

A full investigation has been ordered into the Desert Prison incident. Thus far only the following two of the fugitives have been succesfully retrieved and have been executed under the Criminal Parole Act, article 17. 

G.L Cerriso   
M. Decan 

Here follows a list of residents at Desert Prison which have escaped at April 29th and are currently being classified as state fugitives: 

. . . .   
Fixwald, G.   
Flinger, J.M.   
Freuger, D.   
Gerold, W.O   
Harrison, W.   
Heartilly, J.   
. . . . 

State fugitive. Oh the irony, he had become the leader of the same state which classified him as a fugitive. 

* * * * * 

"President are you sure for appointing the general to his former position?" 

Jules nodded, not turning around to look at the man standing behind him. He leant against the only desk in the presidential room, facing the window. The evening blue of the sky was littered with specks of uneartly diamonds. He often wondered if they had sparkled when his beloved sister was screaming for her life, did they shine as bright in all their beauty, when she exhaled her last breath of life. 

"How will he plan an attack against the Garden, the place where his own daughter resides, without backing up on us?" 

Julia, how could he ever pay for a life that would never return? Sometimes it would take a lot to convince him of the illusion he had a reason to inhale the poisenous fume called air. But he had to, finish this one last mission in the name of an angel. 

A flicker of a smile broke unto his face. History was repeating itself, Loire, Caraway, and it would end the same. History always did. His dark almond shaped eyes lit up when he thought of how he'd give the old general his last chance to do what he loved the most, killing innocent people, this time it would be his own daughter. 

"He won't, trust me," Jules replied. "I have all confidence in our general. " The man nodded, though he lacked the confidence, like the rest of the government. 

Jules knew this, but it didn't matter if they trusted him or not. He wasn't going to stay president for long anyway. 

Leaving the man standing without as much as a polite nod, he went out of the door. He needed fresh air, the small office room was suffocating. It brought back memories of narrow prison chambers, rats willing to eat you alive, darkness. Gasping he made his way out to the balcony, gratefully inhaling the fresh evening air. The gentle evening breeze took up the privilige of playing with his chin-length locks as he looked over his recently aquirred kingdom. From what he had heard, no one has stood on this very balcony since Sorceress Edea's parade. It had also been the same place where the former president had died. 

But with Jules, things were different. He never cared for admiration nor power. A man can only be deceived by his dreams and he had none. Deling wanted power and thus did not see the threacery in his alliance with a sorcereress. The sorceress herself desired the rule over mankind, in the end it was that greed that defeated her. 

Man would always be chasing a dream that is held by another. But Jules' desire was one that no man could grant him, therefor he was dependent on no one. 

And what he desired was Julia. His sister, lover and friend. For none other but her would he give up his will. 

Though they used to stay in what could be called an orphanage, he did not recall anybody else taking up the task of taking care of him other than her. Almost immediately upon the entering the orphanage she had claimed him as her brother. She must have been at the tender age of thirteen when they had cast her out of the orphanage with him. Their care takers never bothered to give him a family name. That day when they had left the orphanage, she christened him Heartilly like her and armed with nine years more in wisdom she had taken him along in her brief journey of life. 

It pained him endlessly to think that they could still have been together, if she just hadn't died in such a vulgar and meaningless way. Her untimely death robbed him of his life. 

Julia, his beautiful dead Julia. They didn't even allow him to visit her funeral. 

_We are forever._

But she would return to him in time. Even in death, she was still his. For they shared something that would transcend the borders of cosmic design. 

As he turned to leave the balcony, he felt how his foot brushed past something solid. Looking down, he saw something glinting in the darkness. Only when he picked it up and examined it, did he realize it was a bracelet. Without giving it a second thought, he put the ornament in his pocket. 

* * * * * 


End file.
